Passenger Refusing to Swap Plane Seat With Kid on Eight-Hour Flight Praised

An airline passenger who gave the reason why they refused to swap seats with a child on a long-haul flight has been praised on the social-media platform Reddit.

The woman had been on her way home from Africa with a transfer in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. While it was known that her flight had lasted eight hours, the passenger had shared no further detail in her post about where she was travelling to and on which airline. "This was my second 8-hour flight on my way home," the woman wrote online.

"I had booked an aisle seat so that I could get up without bothering others and a special meal due to health requirements. I boarded the plane, found my seat and settled in," the poster added.

"A family gets on with 3 children and asks if I could switch seats with one of their kids so that they can be together. The father of the family wasn't sat anywhere near the mother and kids, so it looked to me like they had left their seats to random assignment," the woman wrote.

The Reddit user added that, while they had initially agreed to this seat swap, she soon realized that it would mean she would have to relocate to a less-comfortable middle seat and changed her answer to "no".

The woman recalled what happened next: "Another passenger then gets up and says he has a seat in the back that I can move to, and I said no. I said that I had booked my seat and ordered a dietary meal, and there was no way I was moving to a middle seat. He then starts loudly criticizing me, saying that he hopes I understand that I'm splitting a family up."

This eventually attracted the attention of the cabin crew, who got a passenger on the other end of the row to switch seats and sit somewhere else so that the family's kids could sit together.

"The other passenger from before then starts loudly saying to his kids and the family 'Do you understand what happened? She thought her seat was too special so she wouldn't let you sit together.' I told the guy to mind his own business and he responded that he wasn't talking to me," the woman added.

Expert Verdict: The Passenger Is Entitled to the Seat They Paid For

Frank Thewes is a therapist who runs a solo counseling practice in New Jersey. The Path Forward Therapy CEO told Newsweek that the passenger had bought a specific seat and meal, and that they are entitled to get that product.

"I think most people would switch seats in this case if the new seat was as good or better than the current seat. The passenger bought a product, which is the seat and flight experience, just as the family did," Thewes said.

"If the family was concerned about sitting together with their children, then they certainly could have planned better and purchased the appropriate seats together," he added.

"If the seat the passenger was expected to switch to was a downgrade, then why would anyone fault them for keeping their purchased seat on a long, eight-hour flight?" Thewes said.

What Do the Comments Say?

Since it was shared to the social-media platform on August 22 by u/Kitsune_Chan29, the Reddit post has been upvoted by 96 percent of users and commented on more than 1,200 times. The vast majority of the Reddit users engaging with the post have backed the passenger for staying put in their prepaid seat.

"If the family wanted to be together they could have paid to do so," one user wrote.

"Dude is being a pain in the a** and blaming OP [original poster] for his own mistake. He should have booked his family's seats together in the first place," another added.

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